The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Friday, October 26, 2012

US learns hard lessons of Asia 'pivot'

[This piece appeared at Asia Times Online on Oct. 27, 2012. It can be reposted if ATOl is credited and a link provided.]

The real action in Sino-US relations this
week was not the predictable China-bashing in the
third election debate between US President Barack
Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in
Florida on October 22: it was the little-noticed
concurrent visit to Asia of a high-powered team of
retired US diplomats.

The team, a
bipartisan affair consisting of Richard Armitage,
Stephen Hadley, James Steinberg and Joseph Nye,
had a tough task.

With sanction from
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a
quasi-official delegation, these Asian-affairs
worthies were called on to demonstrate that the
Obama administration's strategy for Asia - the
famous "pivot" of military forces, diplomatic and
economic initiatives, and strategic attention -
can deliver effective diplomatic engagement with
the People's Republic of China, and
not just produce a
threatened and angry Chinese panda.

The
team's task is probably impossible - which is
probably why it is being undertaken by a group of
retirees and not snub-sensitive government
officials. The PRC is in no mood to support US
pretensions to being the only, indispensable
honest broker in the region. Beijing wants to
punish the United States for the pivot, which it
sees as nothing more or less than a tilt away from
China.

These are tense times for "the
pivot". The PRC is testing the US strategy in what
appears to be an unexpected way: leaving the US
alone and selectively beating up on US ally Japan
on the issue of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. This
is an eventuality the United States does not seem
to have planned for.

At the end of
September, in a lengthy interview with senior
fellow Mike Chinoy at the University of Southern
California East Asia Center, Kurt Campbell made
the case for the pivot as a savvy piece of US
statecraft.

Campbell is a Japan hand. His
elevation to the post of assistant US secretary
for East Asia - and the later departure from the
State Department of China hand James Steinberg -
was seen as the manifestation of an important
shift in the Obama administration's strategic
thinking vis-a-vis the PRC.

China was no
longer viewed optimistically as a rising power
whose liberal democratic evolution would track its
runaway economic growth, albeit with a lag of a
few years. Multiple disappointments from climate
change to North Korea to currency valuation
persuaded the Obama administration that, for
practical purposes, the PRC had to be handled as
an authoritarian state whose elite is
constitutionally unsympathetic to the United
States and its aims.

Dealing with China,
in other words, was not a matter of appealing to
common values and interests; instead, it demanded
carrots and sticks. Exit James Steinberg and, from
the National Security Council, Jeffrey Bader. And
enter Kurt Campbell, and the pivot.

In his
September interview, Campbell makes the pitch for
the pivot as a win-win for China and the planet,
in a reassuring, measured baritone I associate
with a funeral director selling a fine casket to a
rich and flustered widow. Campbell makes the
obvious point that China's nervous neighbors would
welcome a US "return to Asia".

He also
makes the somewhat more debatable assertions that
the pivot was designed with China's well-being in
mind, that multilateralizing China's bilateral
territorial spats in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations was an initiative to help out
Beijing, that the US rapprochement with Myanmar
wasn't about China, and Air-Sea Battle, the plan
for conventional-warfare Armageddon against the
PRC, was simply an expression of the US Navy's
"centuries-old" natural rambunctiousness.

In turning to the awkward issue of
"sovereignty disputes" - the PRC's clashes with
neighbors emboldened by the pivot - Campbell
opined hopefully that China's leaders recognized
the overriding importance of maintaining good
relations with the United States and would
therefore look beyond the current
unpleasantnesses.

As he put it:

Our sense is that
[president-in-waiting Xi Jinping] is a person
that's committed to continuing a strong
relationship between China and the United States
... [prospective premier] Li Keqiang ... was
very clear on his determination to keep US-China
relations on a steady course ... So I think we
have some confidence that the leadership will
follow through accordingly ... Still, we think
it is profoundly and deeply in China's interest
to maintain a good relationship with the United
States ... and we think cooler heads will likely
prevail in that assessment during the next
leadership cycle [to get underway in November]
... [1]

Beyond Campbell's confidence
that the Chinese leadership would consider it
absurd to try to go toe to toe with the United
States, there was probably reliance on a (to the
United States) virtuous cycle that would kick in
if China did push back.

It would seem that
the PRC's freedom of action would be constrained
by the fact that overt Chinese pushiness would be
counterproductive, driving allies closer to the
United States, further isolating the PRC and
strengthening the case for the pivot.

A
perfect plan ... not.

I do not believe
that Campbell and company reckoned with the PRC's
evolutionary adaptation to the serial island
provocations committed by Vietnam, the Philippines
and Japan, or its determination to make a stand
against what it sees as an unambiguous US exercise
in containment.

Having learned its lesson
about Western command of the diplomatic and
international trade battlefield in the first
humiliating dust-up over Captain Zhan Qixiong and
the disputed Senkaku / Diaoyu islands in 2010, the
PRC switched to a strategy of using domestic
popular demonstrations and boycott to deliver an
economic and political mugging to Japan.

As an indication of China's resolve in
this matter, it should be remembered that the
central Japanese government's purchase of the
Senkakus was conceived in large part as a
conciliatory act, to deny the China-bashing
xenophobe Shintara Ishihara the chance to buy the
islands and use them to engage in serial
provocation against China.

At this
juncture, perhaps considering that the Obama
administration had little appetite for a hot China
conflict in the middle of the presidential race,
the PRC decided to seize upon the act of the
purchase and whip up popular anger to mete out
harsh if calibrated punishment to Japan's
interests inside China, while eschewing official
actions that could be construed as military or
economic aggression against Japan or the world
free-trade regime.

At the Chinese Foreign
Ministry, it's all Diaoyus all the time. The
regime is making it clear that it will not back
down on the issue regardless of what foreigners
might say about the damage to China's regional
standing, its economy, or its future as the
world's beloved cuddly soft-power panda.

These economic hostilities, while damaging
to Chinese interests, are certainly not welcome to
Japan. In a generally bleak economy, it is
impossible to untangle the Senkaku factor from
other international trade and investment issues.

However, Japanese exports to China dropped
14.3% year on year in September, contributing
(together with a disastrous drop in exports to the
euro zone) to only the second monthly trade
deficit for Japan in the past 30 years. Japanese
manufacturers are reportedly holding back on China
investments, for understandable reasons; time will
tell if this harms China, or simply opens up more
opportunities for non-Japanese competitors. In any
case, the impassioned argument over the
uninhabited Senkakus isn't doing Japan's
corporations a world of financial good. [2]

In 2012, by its carefully delineated
domestic move against Japan, the PRC has cast the
United States in the unwelcome role of helpless
giant, unable to bring its military might, its
prestige or its domination of crucial multilateral
diplomatic of financial institutions to bear on
Japan's behalf.

So the superhero league of
retired and rusticated diplomats was summoned from
think-tanks and stately manors to jet to Tokyo and
Beijing.

The team included two
Republicans: Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of
state under George W Bush and a close associate of
former secretary of state and chairman of the
joint chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, and Stephen
Hadley, another Bush administration official but
with more of a neoconservative bent and touted as
a close adviser to Mitt Romney on foreign affairs.

The two Democrats were James Steinberg,
the ex-Obama administration China hand, and Joseph
Nye, liberal think-tanker and creator of the "soft
power" concept.

In Tokyo, their mission
was to advise the Japanese government that there
would be no dramatic US lurching on China matters
even if Romney is elected president.

Since
Romney has promised to go harder on China than
President Obama, one can assume the purpose of the
bipartisan delegation was to communicate to the
Japanese government that it should not expect any
upgrade in US military or diplomatic backing for
Japan's Senkaku position if Mr Romney becomes
President Romney.

Perhaps the team was
also able to pass the message to Liberal
Democratic Party president Shinzo Abe. With the
government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda
showing a mere 18% approval rating, Abe - who
threw his own gasoline on the Senkaku fire
recently with a public visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine - has a good chance of becoming prime
minister again next summer, if not earlier.

Armitage had already provided an
interesting - and, to Japan, not very positive -
take on the Senkaku issue in an interview with The
Japan Times in early October, indicating that the
US government, when given the opportunity, did not
treat Japanese claims very seriously:

According to Armitage, the US
decided not to take sides on the issue after the
reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control in
1972, as Washington was asked by both [mainland]
China and Taiwan at that time not to recognize
Japanese sovereignty over the islets.
[3]

The delegation also had the
pleasure of addressing resurgent Okinawan fury at
the US military presence - a fulcrum upon which
the US pivot depends - as uproar over the gang
rape of an Okinawan girl by US servicemen,
opposition to the deployment of Osprey vertical
takeoff and landing aircraft, and festering anger
at the foot-dragging over the promised relocation
of US forces highlighted the real-world political
price of an ivory-tower strategic gambit, one that
posited that only China would bear the real costs
in a zero-sum stare-down with the United States.

In
Beijing, the delegation probably hoped to convince
the PRC regime that beating up on Japan would
entail serious consequences ... consequences like
the majestic cruise of the aircraft carrier
George Washington into the South China Sea
and the invitation extended to Vietnamese
officials to come aboard and experience the
vessel's awe-inspiring might first-hand.

Of course, Vietnamese - and Chinese -
officials might remember when this awe-inspiring
might was flung unsuccessfully against Vietnam,
somewhat blunting its effect ... especially when
it is recalled that the PRC has ample venues for
interaction, harassment and retaliation with its
southern neighbor that don't involve making a
vulnerable stand in the South China Sea under the
shadow of the George Washington.

The PRC has made it clear that it is in no
mood to welcome the United States to the
Diaoyu / Senkaku party, certainly not in the form
of a quasi-official delegation.

On October
22, the Chinese Foreign Ministry declared:

[The delegation] is invited by the
Foreign Affairs Association. Mr Stephen Hadley,
National Security Council adviser under the
previous presidential administration, and other
ex-governmental worthies will visit China from
October 22 through October 24 to exchange views
on China-US relations and matters of mutual
concern. This delegation does not possess the
function to engage in so-called "mediation" or
"good offices".

In case anybody missed
the point, Global Times ran an article titled
"China avoids Diaoyu mediation attempts by US
delegation":

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman
Hong Lei said on Monday that the delegation
would focus on Sino-US relations.

"Hong's remarks indicated that China
will not accept the mediation of the US, which
has not shown any sincerity in defusing the
Diaoyu Islands dispute so far," Wang Pin, a
researcher on Japanese studies with the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global
Times Tuesday. [4]

To tarnish the
sheen of America's honest-broker status further,
Global Times sneered:

While the US is scurrying to prevent
military clashes between the two Asian giants so
that its own interest would not be harmed, it is
also trying its best to encourage Japan to boost
its defense to contain China, Wang
said.

State Councilor Dai Bingguo and
premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang met with the group
and, in a piece of sly jiu-jitsu, turned the
meeting into a discussion of US restrictions on
Chinese investment, making the case that the
Sino-US relationship was too important for the
United States to take lightly for the sake of its
precious pivot, not the other way around.

As to the Diaoyu Islands, they were
mentioned in passing:

Li also stated China's solemn stance
on the Diaoyu Islands issue, stressing the
international community should jointly protect
the outcomes of the victory of the Second World
War and the postwar international order.
[5]

This framing puts the United
States pretty much where China wants it:
ineffectual troublemaker unable to protect its
allies or constrain its opponents.

Chinese
media gleefully painted a picture of Japan
twisting in the wind on the islands issue, unable
to elicit European support and even making the
unlikely move of turning to Russia - even though
Tokyo is locked in its own island dispute with
Moscow over the Kuriles:

Despite its call for a peaceful
resolution to the [Diaoyu] islands row, Japan
spared no efforts during Japanese Foreign
Minister Koichiro Gemba's visits to France,
Britain and Germany last week to argue in favor
of its claim to the islands. But those on the
trips only received a cold response when they
brought up the dispute, reported Japanese
newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, saying that none of
the three countries visited has taken a position
in the matter. When asked whether support was
obtained during the trip, Gemba did not respond
directly, only saying that each of the three
parties is in a different situation and no
details about the matter can be disclosed, Kyodo
reported.

Kyodo said Gemba had high
expectations for the tour but found it hard to
obtain support in the countries he visited.

Meanwhile, Tokyo has started to turn to
Moscow. During a meeting between Japan and
Russia in Tokyo on Friday, the Japanese asked
that Russia show understanding toward Japan's
stance on the Diaoyu Islands.

Japanese
newspaper Sankei Shimbun said China's presence
in the ocean is expanding and Japan and Russia
have a "shared a belief about containing China".
[6]

Global anxiety over China's rise
and hardening anti-PRC sentiment within Japan will
probably deny China any clear and satisfying
victory over Japan. However, the previous
assumption that the PRC was merely a paper tiger
both unwilling and unable to retaliate in any
meaningful way will have to be re-examined.

This development will probably not provoke
a re-evaluation of the underlying policy by the
pivot's architects, Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Assistant Secretary for East
Asia Kurt Campbell.

Instead, it will be
seen as a test of America's determination to carry
out the policy - the "gut check" - although the
real-world "guts" in question reside in the flabby
midsection of Japan's economy - and, almost
inevitably, the Obama administration will probably
"double down", not "back down".

Originally, the polarization provoked by
the pivot was probably regarded as a feature,
rather than a bug. Japan, increasingly alienated
from China, would ally more enthusiastically and
effectively with the United States.

But as
Japan and China systematically escalate the
Senkaku / Diaoyu dispute, the US ability to deter,
restrain, exploit, or channel this hostility
decreases commensurately.

In Japan,
China-bashing is now a political lifeline, not
just a diplomatic stratagem. In China,
Japan-bashing is becoming a matter of national
identity.

Uichiro Niwa, the businessman
who was removed from his post as ambassador to
China because of his moderate, don't-rock-the-boat
views on the Senkakus (he is still serving
temporarily, since his designated successor died
of a heart attack before he could take the post),
said sadly:

"Now, Chinese TV programs constantly
show the Japanese flag and a photo of my face,"
the ambassador said. "And the TV says in simple
language that Japan is a thief who stole Chinese
territory. Even elementary-school children can
connect the flag, theft and my photo. In China,
I am feeling like I'm the ringleader."

Niwa said many Japanese volunteers
teaching Japanese or working as caregivers, on a
program by the Japan International Cooperation
Agency, were also feeling a sense of great
tension.

"This is the first time they
report such a situation since I came to China,"
said Niwa, who became ambassador to China in
2010. [7]

The fundamental flaw of the
pivot strategy was acknowledged by Campbell
himself when he referred to the rising hostility
between Japan and China, engendered of course by
past and present factors but exacerbated by the
pivot.

We are worried that persistent
high-level tensions are eating away at
Sino-Japanese goodwill, at enormous linkages
that have developed people to people, on
culture, on business ... it is stirring negative
feelings on both sides ... We recognize that
damage has been done, and we're worried about
it.

These people are learning to hate
each other for contemporary as well as historical
reasons, and there isn't a lot the United States
can do about it.

8 comments:

*We are worried that persistent high-level tensions are eating away at Sino-Japanese goodwill, at enormous linkages that have developed people to people, on culture, on business ... it is stirring negative feelings on both sides ... We recognize that damage has been done, and we're worried about it*

*Cambodia gets last chance to show spine* ?with china under siege, i'd say it take lots of *cajuns* for tiny cambodia to defy clinton's dictat n standby its benefictor china.

if cambodia finally cop out, i've an inkling it would, the chinese shouldnt begrudge their tiny neighbor, there's only so much cambodia can do under the relentless assault by the world's biggest n meanest thug.

haav bline*Cambodia has shown strong spine by standing up for its own national interest against American pressure .........................It is hard to believe how arrogant Americans are in giving exact orders to other countries on how to sacrifice their own self-interest in order to serve American desire to dominate every part of the world, specifically to sacrifice their own national security and regional prosperity by helping America turn East Asia into the 21st century Warring States*http://tinyurl.com/9wf9eak

nageshv99 *Chinese occupation of Tibet and enslaving tibetan people is wrong period. The issue is NOT mcmohan line, but when CHINA will free Tibet and recognize it as a separate country.* [sic]http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NK06Ad01.html

what i said about the gringos apply to the indians too...such well trained parrots

i offer the same councelling to nageshv*talking down to *lesser beings* seldom works, it always fall on deaf earsa basic educational tenet says, *teach by good examples*why not india , the world's *largest democracy*, show the way ?return ur tibet, aka the tibet that no anglos wanna talk about ?

may be, just may be, then the chinese would start to take u seriously ?*

while we'r at ithere's history 101 for the mushrooms [kept in the dark n fed bushit] in fukusi[ndia]

the indo sino disputechalk it up to another feather in the cap for fukus, aka the shit stirrerhttp://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samwith/within/pcnvrt05.htm